British Pacific Fleet

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The British Pacific Fleet (BPF) was a multinational Allied naval force which saw action against Japan during World War II. The fleet was comprised mainly of British Commonwealth naval vessels. The BPF formally came into being on 22 November 1944. Its main base was at Sydney, Australia, with a forward base at Manus Island.

[edit] Background

The British Pacific Fleet was, and remains, the most powerful conventional war fleet assembled by the Royal Navy, comprising by VJ Day four battleships, eighteen aircraft carriers, eleven cruisers and many smaller warships and support vessels. Despite this, it was a fraction of the forces that the United States had in action against Japan and it's difficult to argue that its presence was critical to the war effort.

After the early disasters against Japan, the British presence in the western Pacific and south-east Asia had been eliminated. Now the allies were advancing, it was the U.S. that was liberating British territories and extending its influence. It was, therefore, seen as a political and military imperative that a British presence was restored in the region and British military assets were deployed against Japan. The British government were determined that British territories, such as Hong Kong should be recaptured by British forces.

The British establishment, however, was not unanimous on the commitment of the BPF. Churchill, in particular, argued against, not wishing visibly to be junior partner in what had been exclusively United States' battle. (The Australian and New Zealand forces that were active had been absorbed into the American command structure.) He also considered that a British presence would be unwelcome and should be concentrated on Burma and Malaya. Naval planners, supported by the Chiefs of Staff, believed that such a commitments would strengthen British influence and the British Chiefs of Staff considered mass resignation, so strongly held were their opinions^[1].

Some U.S. planners had also considered, in 1944, that a strong British presence against Japan was essential to an early end to the war and American home opinion would also be badly affected if Britain did not put itself in the line.

Australia had been dependent upon U.S. power for its protection, and had endured being a subservient ally. It was argued that, at the least, a powerful British presence would act as a counter-balance. When the BPF arrived at Sydney, its new home base, in February, 1945, it was well received. The Australian government had prepared necessary facilities, supplies had been stock-piled and civilian homes were available for crews to rest and experience home life.

The deployment of the BPF would not be straightforward. The Pacific war was a radically different operating environment requiring warships to remain at sea for extended periods, without ready access to land bases.

The effort made by Britain and its Commonwealth partners in the final stages of the Pacific war did manage to repair British prestige and influence.

[edit] Constituent forces

The British aircraft carrier HMS Formidable going through the anti-submarine boom in Sydney Harbour in 1945. The blackened funnel was the result of a kamikaze attack, in which a Japanese aircraft crashed on the flight deck.

The fleet was founded when Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser struck his flag at Trincomalee as Commander-in-Chief of the British Eastern Fleet and hoisted it in the gunboat HMS Tarantula as Commander-in-Chief British Pacific Fleet. He later transferred his flag to the more suitable battleship, HMS Howe.

The Eastern Fleet was reorganised into the British East Indies Fleet, based in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and what was to be become the British Pacific Fleet (BPF). The BPF operated against targets in Sumatra, gaining experience until early 1945, when it departed Trincomalee for Sydney. (These operations are described in the article on the British Eastern Fleet.)

The title "British Pacific Fleet" is misleading. As with many other major "British" formations, the BPF was multi-national. It eventually comprised ships and personnel from the British Royal Navy (RN), British Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN). The RAN's contribution was limited because its larger vessels had been integrated with United States Navy formations since 1942. A high proportion of naval aviators were New Zealanders. The USN also contributed to the BPF, as did personnel from the South African Navy (SAN). Australian and New Zealand ports and infrastructure also made vital contributions in support of the BPF.

During World war II, the fleet was commanded by Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser. In practice, command of the fleet in action devolved to Vice-Admiral Sir Bernard Rawlings, with Vice-Admiral Sir Philip Vian in charge of air operations by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA). The fighting end of the fleet was referred to as Task Force 57 and the Fleet Train was Task Force 113.

As well as its base at Sydney, the Fleet Air Arm established Mobile Naval Air Bases (MONABs) in Australia to provide technical and logistic support for the aircraft.

[edit] Relationship with the United States Navy

The United States Navy (USN), which had control of Allied operations in the Pacific Ocean Areas, gave the BPF combat units the designation of Task Force 57 (TF-57), and later made them part of Task Force 37 (TF-37).

The Admiralty had proposed an active British role in the Pacific in early 1944 but the initial USN response had been discouraging. Admiral Ernest King, Commander-in-Chief United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, and alleged Anglophobe,^{[citation needed]} was reluctant to concede any such role and raised a number of issues, including the requirement that the BPF should be entirely self-sufficient. These were eventually overcome or discounted and, at a meeting, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt "intervened to say that the British Fleet was no sooner offered than accepted. In this, though the fact was not mentioned, he overruled Admiral King's opinion" (Churchill, The Second World War pp. ?).

The Pacific war environment was unfamiliar to the Royal Navy, which needed to establish an RFA fleet train that could adequately support an active naval force at sea for weeks or months. This was, however, unfamiliar to the Royal Navy, which had been used to operating close to its bases in Britain, the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean; purpose-built infrastructure and expertise were lacking. The distance from Sydney was too far to allow efficient fleet support, so, with much American support, a forward base was established at Manus atoll, in the Admiralty Islands, which was described as "Scapa Flow with bloody palm trees." ^[1]

[edit] Active service

Major actions in which the fleet was involved included Operation Meridian, air strikes in January 1945 against oil production at Palembang, Sumatra. These raids, conducted in bad weather, succeeded in reducing the oil supply of the Japanese Navy. A total of 48 FAA aircraft were lost due to enemy action and crash landings; they claimed 30 Japanese planes destroyed in dogfights and 38 on the ground.

In March 1945, while supporting the invasion of Okinawa, the BPF had sole responsibility for operations in the Sakishima Islands. Its role was to suppress Japanese air activity, using gunfire and air attack, at potential Kamikaze staging airfields that would otherwise be a threat to U.S. Navy vessels operating at Okinawa. The carriers were subject to heavy and repeated kamikaze attacks, but because of their armoured flight decks, the British aircraft carriers proved highly resistant (unlike their U.S. counterparts), and returned to action relatively quickly. Subsequent studies, however, showed that serious damage had occurred to the ships' structure and modernisation was uneconomic.

In April 1945, the British 4th Submarine Flotilla was transferred to the major Allied submarine base at Fremantle, Western Australia, as part of BPF. Its most notable success in this period was the sinking of the heavy cuiser Ashigara, on June 8, 1945 in Banka Strait, off Sumatra, by HMS Trenchant and HMS Stygian. On 31 July 1945, in Operation Struggle, the British midget submarine XE3, crewed by Lieutenant Ian Fraser and Acting Leading Seaman James Magennis, attacked Japanese shipping at Singapore. They sank the heavy cruiser Takao, which settled to the bottom at its berth. Fraser and Magennis were both awarded the Victoria Cross.

Battleships and aircraft from the fleet also attacked the Japanese home islands. The battleship King George V bombarded naval installations at Hammamatsu, near Tokyo; the last time a British battleship fired in action, Meanwhile, carrier strikes were carried out against land and harbor targets including, notably, the disabling of a Japanese escort carrier by British naval aircraft. The BPF would also have played a major part in a proposed invasion of the Japanese home islands, known as Operation Downfall, which was cancelled after Japan surrendered. The last naval air action in WWII was on VJ-Day when British carrier aircraft shot down Japanese Zero fighters.

Lt Robert Hampton Gray, a Canadian naval airman who piloted a Vought Corsair with No. 1841 Squadron FAA on HMS Formidable, was awarded the Victoria Cross, following his death in an attack on a Japanese destroyer at Onagawa Wan, Japan, on August 9, 1945.

Fighter squadrons from the fleet claimed a total of 112.5 Japanese aircraft shot down. No. 1844 Squadron FAA (flying Hellcats) was the top-scoring squadron, with 28 claims.

[edit] Post-war

Following the end of hostilities, the fleet formed the naval arm of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan.

[edit] Order of battle

The fleet included 17 aircraft carriers (with 300 aircraft, about 25% of the total Allied air strength), four battleships, 10 cruisers, 40 destroyers, 18 sloops, 13 frigates, 35 minesweepers, other kinds of fighting ships, and many support vessels.

[edit] Aircraft carriers

• HMS Colossus: Corsairs, Barracudas
• HMS Formidable: approximate airgroup 36 Corsairs, 15 Avengers
• HMS Glory: Corsairs, Barracudas
• HMS Illustrious: approximate airgroup 36 Corsairs, 15 Avengers
• HMS Implacable: 48 Seafire, 21 Avenger, 12 Firefly
• HMS Indefatigable: 40 Seafire, 18 Avenger, 12 Firefly
• HMS Indomitable: 39 Hellcats, 21 Avengers
• HMS Venerable: Corsairs, Barracudas
• HMS Vengeance: Corsairs, Barracudas
• HMS Victorious: 36 Corsairs, 15 Avengers, plus Walrus amphibian
• HMS Unicorn: maintenance carrier for aircraft repair
• HMS Ruler: escort carrier

[edit] Battleships

• HMS Howe
• HMS King George V
• HMS Duke of York arrived in July 1945
• HMS Anson arrived in July 1945

[edit] Cruisers

• HMS Swiftsure
• HMS Newfoundland
• HMS Euryalus
• HMS Black Prince
• HMCS Uganda
• HMNZS Achilles
• HMNZS Gambia

[edit] Submarines

• 18-22 total, of "T" & "S" class, plus minelaying submarines HMS Rorqual and HMS Porpoise.

[edit] Reference

[edit] External links

• Fleet Air Arm Archive, 2000-01, British Pacific Fleet 1945
• Supplement to the London Gazette of Tuesday, the 1st of June, 1948, "The Contribution of the British Pacific Fleet to the Assault on Okinawa, 1945." (Published June 2, 1948.)
• The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945 (1956), Ch. 24: "With the British Pacific Fleet"
• Ted Bates, 200?, British Pacific Fleet
• Bill Gordon, (no date) "Kamikaze: The Story of the British Pacific Fleet, edited by Stuart Eadon" (Book review.)